| Calvary Episcopal Church, Rockdale |
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| THE 23rd SUNDAY AFTER PENTECOST 23 October, 2005 The Rev. Robert C. Granfeldt |
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What a lovely way to start the day!
There’s a very useful word that often occurs to me when I’m reading the Bible – because
there are so many places where it fits. It’s especially helpful in many of those places I’ve
been talking about, off and on, over the past eight or ten months. You know the ones I’m
talking about – the one’s I’ve been telling you “ain’t necessarily so.”
The word is hyperbole! It’s a word that is used primarily in the fields of literature and
rhetoric and it refers to a particular technique used by writers and speakers to add
emphasis to what’s being said- to “punch it up!”
The word comes from a couple of Greek terms: hyper, which means “over” or “above” –
familiar in that exact same form in English, and in its modern short form, hype; and
ballein, meaning “to throw”. But together, it comes to something like, “to throw over; to
throw up,” or, in today’s parlance, to “go over the top!” It means to exaggerate –
sometimes wildly – in order to make a point! To “overstate,” at times almost to the point
of absurdity!
Hyperbole provides one of the ways that fundamentalists tend to mess up – when their
literalist tendencies lead them to try to defend something that was clearly meant as
hyperbole, under the mistaken belief that to take anything less than literally somehow
threatens the whole integrity of the Bible!
But there is plenty of hyperbole in Scripture, and the quote I started with, from our first
lesson, this morning is an obvious example, and if you ever run into anyone who takes it
literally, I suggest you keep an eye out for an exit!
I think I can safely guarantee that if you afflict any widow or orphan, God will NOT kill you
with the sword, and your spouses will not be widowed, nor your children orphaned
because of your sin. Nor is it very likely that the writers of this book, and those that may
have edited it through the centuries, actually thought God would come walking up to
those who mistreated widows or orphans and lop their heads off! But they DID want to be
sure to impress on the people that that type of behavior was NOT acceptable! And that
those who did so SHOULD, indeed be punished – and severely!
Thus, the hyperbole! How better to make the point, than to say such behaviors were
worthy of instant DEATH at the hands of the Lord God!
This particular section of the Book of the Exodus is really quite old, even as the
Scriptures go. It was written well after the Hebrew settlement of Canaan, but when the
culture was still primarily agricultural, and such things as trade and commerce had not
developed much, as yet. But as an integral part of the Code of God’s Covenant with his
people, it was compelling, and long-lasting!
In fact, the Prophets, who came along centuries later, picked up on these very concerns,
and many like them, and made them central to the life of the faith that was developing
under their guidance – the faith that would become Judaism, and that would give birth to
Christianity and, eventually, to Islam! The concerns WERE and, complete with the
hyperbole, ARE firmly fixed in the whole of the Judaeo-Christian-Islamic tradition!
But, under the prophets, the hyperbole underwent a shift in intent and meaning. With
them – and with those who followed in the traditions – the concern shifted more to the
society than the individual, and both the concern and the hyperbole came to represent
what they saw as God’s immutable laws for society!
That is – the society that is unjust, the society that ill uses its own people, even the
society that mistreats the stranger and the sojourner in the land – WILL eventually fall.
Not that it will be struck down by the sword of the Lord God, but that it will decay and
collapse from within by the weight of its own sinfulness, and eventually become prey to
its enemies!
To put it most briefly: the unjust society is doomed! It may take a while; but it WILL fall!
And in the eyes of justice, the sword wielded by its enemies, when it falls – whether
those enemies bye foreign armies or international trade competitors – will be the sword
of the Lord!
And the measure of the justice – or lack of it – of any society, was, and is, and will always
be, the way it treats its poor, it’s defenseless, the sick, the stranger, the worker, and yes,
even the prisoner! The measure of justice will never be how well the wealthy and
comfortable fare, but the fate of the poorest and weakest.
None of this based on any theories of governance or nation, politics, sociology or
economics. All of it flowing from the belief embodied in the last phrase of the lesson: “for
I am compassionate!”
These things are the Law because the God we worship is compassionate!
All of this applies simply because God loves his creation; god loves his children! And
because he loves, he requires love in return!
Depending on how one counts, the Bible consists of dozens of books, and tens of
thousands of verses. It is filled with contradictions – apparent and real. Much of it is
nebulous, vague, figurative, semi-historical, fictional, metaphoric, legalistic; it ain’t all
necessarily so – a it’s hyperbolic, poetic, based on hearsay, fabulous, mythical, mystical,
but it can also be factual, eyewitness, pedantic, and on and on and on!
And yet it all comes down to those four little verses; those two little orders in the Gospel!
Love God! Love your neighbor as yourself!
And All the Rest Depends On Them!
Sometimes I have to wonder, just what’s so hard to understand?
Sometimes I wonder why and how we think we’re so smart that we can come up with so
many wonderful schemes to make the world “work” to OUR satisfaction: political,
economic, sociologic; idealistic, practical, moralistic, ammoralistic; chauvinistic,
egalitarian, socialistic, communistic, capitalistic, communal; matriarchal, patriarchal,
anarchical. And just about any other ways to order society that the human mind can
conceive of.
And all irrelevant IF they overlook what Jesus Christ, himself, taught is the most
important thing; the most basic thing: that whatever else we may do; whatever system we
may follow; whatever rules we may conceive: NONE of them are going to work unless
they depend on the most basic precepts of all – that the unwavering concern of the
prophets and the laws that Jesus cites MUST underlie all else!
That we care for the poorest of the poor, and that we Love the Lord our God with all our
heart and soul and mind – and our neighbor as ourself!
I wonder, after two thousand years, with no hyperbole: just what’s so hard to get?
In Jesus Christ’s Name. Amen.
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| Previous Sermon |
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‘And seeking to test the Son of God, his enemies asked him,
“teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?” and he
said to them,
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all
your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great
commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor
as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the
prophets.”’
“teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the law?” and he
said to them,
“You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, and with all
your soul, and with all your mind. This is the first and great
commandment. And a second is like it, You shall love your neighbor
as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the law and the
prophets.”’
If you afflict any widow or orphan, and they cry out to me, I will surely
hear their cry; and my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword,
and your wives shall become widows and your children fatherless.
hear their cry; and my wrath will burn, and I will kill you with the sword,
and your wives shall become widows and your children fatherless.
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